“What do you mean, then?” He really wanted to get through this conversation so that they could schedule some sex for tonight.
“He was my first . . .” She paused. “I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing with you.”
“But you had fun, right?” he asked. She nodded and bit her lip. It was so endearing and fist-bitingly hot that he could barely stand it. He could also barely stand for her to think she didn’t know what she was doing. The way she touched him—it was going to burn him alive if he wasn’t careful. And he also wanted to rip her ex-douche apart. Letting Bridget Nolan think she wasn’t the hottest lay in the history of hot lays should be criminal. “Here’s the only ground rule I’m interested in—if you’re having fun, then I’m having fun.”
“Really?” she said. He hated that she seemed surprised.
“The first is never the best.” He wished he was the kind of guy who would play dirty, who would remind her of the fact that, even though they didn’t have the history she had with her ex-douche, they had something worth exploring.
She looked away from him. “You don’t understand what it is to have that kind of history with someone.”
“I certainly understand what it’s like to have a shitty kind of history with someone,” he said.
Bridget tilted her head. “I always thought that what Chris and I had was as good as it got.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet that it was just a whole barrel of laughs.” He’d also bet that Chris Dooley couldn’t find a clit with a flashlight, but he didn’t think it would help get him laid to tell Bridget that out loud. He’d save it for the rehearsal dinner, if the ex-douche was even invited.
“Still, we need some more ground rules.”
Matt took a big swallow of wine and motioned for her to go on. “Like what?”
“A sex schedule.” Why was she still on that? “I want to make sure that I’m keeping up my end of the bargain and that you stay satisfied.”
She was making this whole deal seem like a lot less fun than it had when she’d originally proposed that they stay publicly married for a month. He wondered what other fun-killing ground rules she would come up with.
“And what are we going to tell people about living in two different apartments?” he asked. Having her here with him would give them some flexibility with her stupid sex schedule ground rule.
“Don’t you have a lease?”
Matt smirked. “My parents own the place.”
“And my dad owns my place.”
“Which means that there’s no reason that we can’t move in together.”
Bridget shook her head. “No one will know that we don’t live together if we don’t tell them.”
He was going to have to be more explicit about why he wanted her to move in with him for a month.
He stepped closer to her, and this time she didn’t step back, although she took another fortifying swallow of wine. “I just think that we should live together if we’re going to come to terms about the kind of sex schedule that makes sense.”
“And that requires living together?” She kind of squeaked, and that sound coming from his usually unflappable former boss set him afire.
“You just don’t get it.” He ran his thumb across her lower lip. “You don’t get how much I want you.”
She tried to look away, but he gripped her chin. What he’d gotten out of this conversation so far was that she usually felt like sex was a chore to be scheduled with a chart or a reward to be doled out. He wanted to make her see that it was for her—that in any fling with him, she would enjoy everything they did as much as he did. Hell, he wanted her to have more fun than him because she’d apparently been missing out on so much for so long.
He held her gaze for a long moment. Her eyes glittered, and he wondered if she was pissed at him or if she was thinking along the same lines as he was. “What can I do to make this so much fun that we have to schedule two-a-days?”
Bridget started, and he expected her to pull away and eviscerate him with some scathing remark. The last thing he expected was for her to say, “Kiss me.”
He’d never moved so quickly in all his life. He pulled her close and took her mouth. Her smell wrapped him up tight, and her soft lips yielded to him in a way that made his knees weak. Her warm curves somehow held him up, though, seeming to press against him as he ran his hands along her sides, pulling her hips close and inflicting exquisite torture on his poor dick.
He wanted to lay her out on his sheets and find every freckle on her gorgeous body with his mouth. He wanted to trace and map her and see the morning sunlight reflecting on her hair.
Most of all, he never wanted her to doubt that sex with him was so good that they’d blow any sex schedule or quota out of the water.
He had plans to do all of it—to tell her without words that she was a siren underneath her tailored suits and prissy demeanor. He meant to get started tonight, but unfortunately, his phone rang.
Bridget pulled away. “You should get that. It could be your parents.”
He groaned. “It would be better if I didn’t answer. It would help me piss them off more.”
“I think you’ve done that enough by getting married to me in the first place. This is more to help me with my ex and you with yours at this point.”
She had a point, so he pulled away and answered the phone. “Mom?”
* * *
• • •
WHILE MATT WAS ON the phone, Bridget remembered what she had to give him and reached in her pocket. She wondered what he would do if she told him it was her father’s wedding band. It didn’t matter that the marriage that ring had sanctified hadn’t lasted, because this one wouldn’t, either.
He sounded irritated on the phone but hung up quickly. When he did, he looked as though he was ready to pick up where they’d left off. She wasn’t so sure. Having sex with him in Vegas had been part of the whole impulsive thing. Sleeping with him now, when they were back in real life, would somehow mean more. Even if it wasn’t supposed to.
That’s why she’d wanted it to be on a schedule. So she could mentally prepare, do it in her role as the perfect wife. So she wouldn’t really have to show herself to him and put herself at risk of real feelings.
The best way to avoid jumping his bones, right here, right now, was probably to remind him that they were currently married. She handed him the ring. “It isn’t much, but this should be enough to convince your ex that you’re a married man now.”
The tips of his fingers singed her palm when he took the ring. He didn’t say anything for a beat too long, just enough for doubts to creep in. “If you want to buy something more expensive, I guess I can’t stop you.”
“This is perfect,” Matt said. She looked up to see him slip the ring over the knuckle on his left ring finger. It fit. She’d been a little worried that it wouldn’t. Sean Nolan had a workingman’s hands, bruised and battered and permanently swollen from the work he’d done all her life.
Even though she knew better—that Matt was bright and hardworking despite the fact that he didn’t have to be—she couldn’t help but compare his very elegant hands with the hands of the kinds of guys she grew up with.
And once she thought about his fingers, she couldn’t stop thinking about how his hands had felt all over her body. Even though she’d kept everything compartmentalized for most of the day, she felt her body heat. She wanted to rub her thighs together, but he would notice because he was looking at her.
“What?”
“This is your dad’s ring.” He knew, and it meant something to him even though it shouldn’t mean anything to him. They were both each other’s means to an end.
“It is.” They might be lying to everyone else, but she wasn’t going to lie to him. “It doesn’t mean anything. My parents are divorced.”
“They’re back together now.” He smirked
at her. “So, the inability to change one’s mind is not a family trait?” He was trying to goad her. It was an obnoxious habit that he’d picked up somewhere along the line when he’d stopped being afraid of her. But he didn’t look like he would eat her alive anymore; he seemed to sense that the mood had shifted.
“No.” She didn’t want to elaborate because every time she gave him a little bit of herself, she felt more intimacy with him. It made it harder to keep him in the friends-only compartment in her mind. Because every time she let him know what she was thinking or feeling, she wanted him to be feeling her in a more carnal sense.
This wouldn’t do at all.
“Why Chris?”
He really wasn’t going to let her get away with being evasive, was he?
“You know that we’ve known each other since we were little kids?”
“Yeah.” He poured her some more wine. “I fail to see that as a reason to stick with someone forever.”
“It just felt like it was meant to be. When it ended, it felt like I’d missed out on my one chance.”
“What? You think it’s fate or something?”
“Some might argue that my parents are fated to be together.” She took a sip of wine. “I mean, they should have been able to stay far apart.”
For some reason, she thought she’d have a harder time staying away from Matt once they were divorced than she’d had staying away from Chris, even though he was practically family.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NAOMI WAS WAITING FOR him when he got to campus. Her glossy blond hair was almost blinding in the summer sun. And she was dressed to kill—a swingy little skirt and a top that showed just a little bit of midriff. And she knew he saw her because she looked at him over the top of her designer sunglasses as soon as he got out of his car.
Matt looked down at his wedding ring and moved it around his ring finger, still unused to the weight on his hand. But somehow, it was kind of comforting.
Even though he and Bridget had only ended up talking last night, and even though the ring was a lie, he liked what it symbolized. He liked the feeling of belonging with Bridget and her strange, loud family. He liked the feeling that he didn’t have to pretend to be someone he was not.
He really didn’t want to deal with Naomi today. Since he hadn’t taken any of her calls over the summer, one would think that she’d gotten the hint that he was done with her. They’d never be able to avoid each other—not with their families so close. But if she had enough gumption to publicly declare that she was only with him for his family name and family money, he would have thought that she would give up the ghost.
He was wrong.
As he neared the building where his advanced tax law seminar was being held, she approached, and he braced himself. The first thing he noticed was that she didn’t smell anything like Bridget.
The second thing he noticed was that he’d never noticed how annoying her voice was—probably because he’d been in love with her. “Matty, I’ve missed you.” She threw her arms around his neck and hung there, choking him.
He was stunned for a second, until he noticed that there were plenty of their classmates in the courtyard, making their way to class. “What are you doing, Naomi?”
She must have sensed the censure in his tone because she pulled back and made her lower lip pouty. “You haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
“Forgiven you for what, Naomi?” He was definitely going to make her say it, or at least think about what she’d done.
“The things I did . . . you know.” She grimaced.
“For cheating on me and then telling all your friends that you were only with me because our parents forced us together? Or telling everyone that I was bad in bed?” Matt was over being embarrassed by that. Naomi had never had any reason to complain, and the petty, toxically masculine part of him was tempted to say it out loud.
Only he wasn’t an actual sociopath, unlike Naomi.
“Matt, it wasn’t like that.” She put her hand on his chest but removed it when he flinched. “We were just joking around. You know I liked it.”
“Listen, lots has changed.” He started to walk away, but she hooked her arm through his.
“And I want to hear all about it.”
He stopped and turned. “There is one thing I’ve been dying to tell you.” He raised his brows and slowly lifted his left hand so she could see. “I’m married. To someone who likes the way I fuck her.”
He left her standing in the courtyard, looking stunned. He’d never been so excited on the way to tax class.
* * *
• • •
JACK LOOKED AT HIS bride-to-be and quaked before her might and power. Chris Dooley was screwed if he thought he was going to be able to move Hannah off her no-Chris-at-any-wedding-of-mine stance. It was just the truth.
They were meeting on neutral territory. Jack had advised that Chris try not to breach the perimeter of their condo. Hannah would probably throw him out the window. She had very little patience for male fuckery, so defenestration was totally on the table. Since Jack gave her very little fuckery to worry about, she had a lot of pent-up justice to mete out.
And since Hannah and Bridget had grown very close over the past year and a half, Hannah was more than prepared to dish out a can of ass-whupping on Bridget’s behalf.
As they waited in a booth at the back of Dooley’s for Chris to show up, his fiancée’s glee was almost palpable. It made Jack glad that he’d been able to win her over. Had he failed he was pretty sure that buzzards would have picked over his bones in the desert some months ago.
He was almost concerned for Chris but shrugged it off. When Chris had apologized for his behavior at their pickup basketball game, Jack had warned him that Hannah’s forgiveness was hard to earn. And Chris wasn’t allowed to earn it with sexual favors, so it was definitely not guaranteed.
“You’re not allowed to maim him,” he said, wanting to be sure the ground rules were clear.
Hannah took a drink of her beer. “C’mon! You never let me maim anyone anymore.”
“I was running out of bail money,” he said with a smile. “Seriously, what’s the plan? Are you just going to make him beg or are you going to let him back in on the wedding?”
“It depends on what he brings to the table.” She wrinkled her nose in this ridiculously cute way that made him want to leave and take her straight to bed. “If he promises to leave Bridget the fuck alone, I might let him back in the wedding. But I don’t trust him. What he did in Vegas was beyond gross.”
Jack tended to agree, but their family’s history with the Dooleys made it nearly impossible to excommunicate Chris completely from their lives. His older brother was saying their wedding Mass, for Christ’s sake. “I get that, but you don’t have the history with him that Bridget does.”
“Yeah, I wanted to punch his dumb face the night I met him.”
That was the same night that they’d met. “But I talked you down.”
“You bribed me with food.”
“I kissed you.” He didn’t need to remind her, because he could tell by the look in her eye that she was remembering.
Still, she protested. “That was because of the tacos. Not because you’re charming or anything.”
God, he loved the way she busted his balls. He loved almost everything about her. If she wiped the sink after brushing her teeth, she’d be perfect. And then he really wouldn’t deserve her.
Chris walked in then, which meant the chance to sneak off to the supply closet with the woman who would be his wife in a little less than a month was gone. Too bad, but he’d rather take things slow when they got home a bit later.
His lifelong best friend looked sweaty, disheveled, like he hadn’t slept in a week. “Thanks for meeting me.”
When Chris moved to sit down, Hannah gave him a look. “I didn’t say y
ou could sit.”
“Oh,” was all he said. Then he stayed standing. Smart man.
“Sit the fuck down, Dooley,” Jack said. His friend sat, while Hannah looked at him like she was going over medieval torture methods in her head.
They sat there and stared at each other for way too long, until Jack checked his watch. He wanted to listen to Chris grovel while he finished his beer, let Hannah make him sweat, and then get home in time for sex. They needed to get on with this.
“Say what you have to say, man.”
Chris looked at him and Jack saw an honest-to-God droplet of sweat make its way down his face before Chris looked at Hannah. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
“You’re going to need to be more specific,” Hannah said, probably enjoying this far too much.
Chris buried his head in hands. “I’m sorry for what I said in Vegas. I was an asshole.”
“Oh, I think you were an asshole before that,” Hannah said in order to prompt his further contrition.
“I’m sorry I messed things up with Bridget before that happened. I took her for granted, and I didn’t realize what I had lost until she was gone. And then I saw her with that other guy—”
Hannah smiled at him with fake beneficence. “You mean her rich, hot young husband?” Hannah winked at Jack, and he was a little relieved. For a second there, her enthusiasm for Matt Kido sounded a little too real.
“Yeah. That guy.” Chris actually sounded a little pissed. “I promise I’ll behave at the wedding.”
“You won’t interfere with Bridget and her new man?” Hannah raised her eyebrows in peak skepticism. “Because that’s the only way I’m letting you back in the wedding. I need you to suffer for what you did to Bridget. You stole over a decade of my friend’s—my new sister’s—life. And the best thing I can think of to punish you is to make you watch her being happy.”
“I promise I won’t do anything.” Chris sounded a little bit too relieved.
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